


all your dead things

by ODed_on_jingle_jangle



Series: snakes to a mongoose [6]
Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Aftermath of Violence, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Dialogue Heavy, F/M, Frenemies, Gen, Hospitals, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Injury Recovery, Major Character Injury, Minor Archie Andrews/Veronica Lodge, Minor Betty Cooper/Jughead Jones, Season/Series 02, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-30
Updated: 2019-06-30
Packaged: 2020-05-31 03:02:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,275
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19417147
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ODed_on_jingle_jangle/pseuds/ODed_on_jingle_jangle
Summary: “I’ve seen you wolf down four of those in under two minutes, but I’ve been here for five and you haven’t even taken a bite.”Jughead leans back, feigning indifference. “You’re interrogating me based on burger math?”Veronica inclines her head and pins him with a pointed stare. “You may say you’re fine, but your appetite just failed the test.”





	all your dead things

**Author's Note:**

> Well. This is the never-ending, most self-indulgent collection ever. I'll probably add something else to it too, Idk. I'm morbid, sue me. Or not. I'm broke, you won't get nothing, lmao.

Veronica raps her knuckles against the wood before opening the door and poking her head inside.

“Mind if I pop in for a visit?” she asks, although she fully intends on visiting whether she receives his blessing or not.

“Why not.” Jughead casually spreads his hands in an open gesture, one encased in the beginning of a decidedly emo black arm cast and the other the point of attachment to a steadily dripping saline pouch.

“Great.” Veronica smiles and pushes the door open wider to accommodate the entourage of totes and bags along her arms.

“Uh…are you staying for the weekend?” he quips, squinting at them skeptically.

“Very funny,” she huffs as she shuffles through, arranging them onto the plastic chairs for visitors. “We Lodges come prepared, wherever we go.”

She freezes as soon as the words have left her lips, abruptly smacked with the realization that the last thing she should be doing is bringing up the family name. Her father is the very reason Jughead is in this antiseptic cell of a room, tethered to tubes like sterile shackles.

His tongue brusquely swipes over his teeth, something hardening in his stare though he doesn’t say a word. Veronica quickly changes the subject.

“A lot of it is from my last visit with Betty, but this is just for you.” She fishes a greasy paper bag out of an insulated lunch tote and places it within reach on the tray beside his bed. “Two burgers, two large fries, courtesy of Pops. I wanted to pay, but he insisted it was on the house, and said to give you his best.”

“S’good old Pop, for you,” Jughead murmurs, taking the bag without opening it. “How is Betty?”

His eyes lock on hers, wavering with naked worry.

“Strong,” Veronica says resolutely, stepping closer to his bedside, wrapping her hand around the guard rail as she promises this. “So strong it blows my mind. She’s shaken up, but she’ll be okay. And she’s got all of us in her corner. Archie’s with her right now, actually.”

“Ah, so that’s why you’re here,” he deduces, faint smirk playing on his lips. “You guys swapped.”

“As a matter of fact, we did.” Veronica straightens and idly smooths her hair back. “Not my decision, mind you. Archie got tired of me hogging Betty all to myself, so now I’m woefully stuck with you, Edgar Allen Jones.”

Jughead snorts. “I’m not exactly thrilled to be stuck with you, either. Pretty sure that cactus has a better bedside manner.”

He points to the small, prickly plant that someone placed on the windowsill. Veronica rolls her eyes and takes a seat in one of the chairs.

“Most people bring bouquets,” she says, sparing it a curious glance.

“Considering it’s from Cheryl, I guess I’m lucky I got anything.”

She should’ve known, given the blood red flower blossoming at the crown of the spiny green plant. Red is practically Cheryl’s trademark, after all. Veronica spends a moment running a fingernail over the thin, silver chain of her necklace, and it occurs to her that Jughead hasn’t even opened the Pop’s bag. The observation waves a flag as red as the flower and with a touch of unease, she studies him closer.

He looks pale. Okay, so he’s never had the most robust complexion, really, it’s always somewhere between bread dough and paste. The guy clearly needs to get some more sun (though with all the fog in Riverdale, Veronica supposes it isn’t entirely his fault). But this is different. This isn’t Jughead’s normal pale, this is like, sickly pale. He’s all washed out and waxy at the edges, almost like a corpse.

“How are you doing?” she asks softly.

“I’m okay, just worried about Betty…and my parents, but mostly Betty.”

Veronica crosses one leg over the other, sitting straighter. “Understandable. But I’m asking about you, Jughead. How are _you_ feeling?”

He blinks rapidly, looks a bit surprised by her insistence. “I’m fine. Kinda sore, maybe, but it’s not bad.”

She doesn’t buy it.

“There’s not one, but two medium rare double cheeseburgers in that bag, with cheddar on the specifically un-toasted buns, tomatoes, pickle, light onion, but not a single leaf of lettuce on either one. Just how you like.”

“And?” Jughead arches a brow.

“And I’ve seen you wolf down four of those in under two minutes, but I’ve been here for five and you haven’t even taken a bite.”

Jughead leans back, feigning indifference. “You’re interrogating me based on burger math?”

Veronica inclines her head and pins him with a pointed stare. “You may say you’re fine, but your appetite just failed the test.”

“Alright, so maybe I’m not feeling the best,” he exhales, eyes leaving hers to fix on a mustard splotch on the bag.

“Have you eaten anything today?”

“Veronica…” He just shakes his head, exasperatedly raking a hand through limp, greasy hair.

“Look, without Archie to play peacemaker and Betty to be the glue, you and I probably wouldn’t even talk to each other, let alone hang out,” Veronica says bluntly. “So this brave face you feel like you have to put on for them and your family, and your gang? You don’t have to do that with me.”

She’s the stone cold rich bitch, isn’t she? And if she’s the rich bitch, then he’s the trailer trash, and neither should have anything to prove to the other, because under normal circumstances they would be less than nothing to one another.

A thoughtful look crosses Jughead’s face and he returns the Pop’s bag to the tray.

“I had exactly one cup of pudding and threw it right back up,” he says flatly. “Which I should’ve expected, because they warned me I might feel sick the first few days of being spleen-less.”

“You feel like you have the flu?” she asks evenly, as if the browser history on her phone isn’t crammed with at least a dozen splenectomy overviews, traditional rich bitch and trailer trash dichotomy be damned.

“And then some.” Jughead nods, bitterness twisting his lips as he runs with the opportunity to dish the brutal honesty she asked for. “Like I got ran over by a truck, scraped off the road, tossed in a dumpster, and then chucked into one of the machines that cubes the garbage.”

“You look it too,” Veronica admonishes to conceal her worry.

It gets an amused grunt out of him, at least. “Oh, yeah. The cactus definitely has a better bedside manner.”

“Don’t dismiss me just yet,” she says lightly, flashing her teeth. “I could help a little, if you let me.”

“Is that so?” he asks, unimpressed.

“Let me do your hair,” she says, standing up and stepping over to the tote with the supplies. “I did Betty’s and it turned out great.”

“Uh…that’s nice, but Betty has a lot more hair than I do.”

 _Not anymore_ , she thinks, swallowing helpless anger back like hot bile before it can show in her expression.

“So? It still needs to be brushed out and I’m up to the challenge.”

“Challenge,” he repeats, deadpan.

“Yeah. It’s gross and messy, let me fix it.”

Jughead makes a noncommittal noise in his throat, unconvinced.

“Don’t you wanna look nice for Betty?” Veronica prompts. “She gets discharged tomorrow, you know the first thing she’s gonna do is come see you.”

“Really?” he perks up immediately, snapping to a sit so fast he hurts himself. Veronica startles at the resulting flinch, the sharp hiss of pain.

“Take it easy, Lover Boy,” she rebukes.

Jughead gingerly clutches at his side, doesn’t retort anything witty or sardonic at the whip-crack speed she’s come to count on. Veronica finds herself a bit unnerved.

“Hey, you okay?”

“Peachy,” he answers through gritted teeth, doesn’t draw his hand away. She’s pretty sure that’s where the incision site is, but can’t bring herself to ask as the reminder that this is her father’s doing grips her throat.

Her father consented to this. No, even worse— he consented to Jughead’s death. It’s just sheer luck that Jughead is still breathing. Veronica’s spine aches and spills from all the knives he keeps plunging into it, ‘Your Dearest Daddykins’ engraved into every metaphorical handle.

Her father keeps getting further and further away from the person she once thought he was. The sordid betrayal that was the October Surprise broke the stability she at least hoped they had as a family unit. The sound Small Fry’s body made when it hit the floor made her vomit in her mouth. And then Jughead, well-meaning, clever and yet so stupid Jughead, is here and that’s bad enough, but her father wanted him in the ground.

“Uh-oh,” he sighs heavily.

“What?” Veronica gives herself a rousing shake. “Don’t tell me you popped your stitches?”

“My stitches are fine.” Jughead measures her with weary eyes. “It’s your facade that’s starting to crack, Ice Queen.”

Veronica squares her shoulders, lifts her chin as she deftly digs the brush and the sprays out of her tote.

“I prefer Cool Countess these days,” she sarcastically corrects, stepping around the tray with purpose now that she’s equipped with her arsenal.

When she winds around the bed, he rolls his eyes but doesn’t fight as she sprays the dry shampoo. She follows it up with a generous blast of dry conditioner and tries not to look too closely at the slivers of bruised flesh that peek out from behind the ties of his gown.

Tries not to pay enough attention to notice that they’re different from Betty’s bruises. Tries to pretend she doesn’t see enough to compare and contrast, to be nauseatingly aware that Jughead’s bruises are impersonal splashes from the blunt whacks of baseball bats or tire irons, and Betty’s are uncomfortably personal; plum patterns like necklaces knuckled deep into her throat and bite marks puffing painfully pink on her breasts.

She’s careful as she drags the brush through his hair, mindful of this egg-sized bump with scabbing she feels more than she sees. Old, crusted blood flakes off around the bristles, maybe with some bits of scab that have already come loose. She isn’t particularly disgusted but she can’t help but think that she is tired of seeing this. Tired of seeing blood and pain. Tired of her father sitting on at the center of most of it, comfortable on his throne of barbwire and broken bones.

Maybe it’s easier to break down because Jughead’s back is to her like this, but the crack in her facade spreads until it shatters. The brush snags in her suddenly trembling hand and a teardrop falls to splash the part in his hair. A shuddering gasp escapes her throat and Jughead stiffens.

“Veronica?” he turns to peer at her.

“I’m so sorry,” she whispers. “I am so sorry my dad did this to you.”

He holds her stare and stubbornly shakes his his head.

“I made my choice. In retrospect it was a stupid choice but stupid or not, it was mine.”

“But you made it because of the position you were cornered in…” _by my father_ , goes unsaid, but hangs implied.

“No guilt by proxy, okay? I don’t— I’m not mad at you, Veronica. I get what it’s like to have mixed feelings about your parents, to say the least.”

Veronica brushes the back of her hand against her cheek, cursing the way her throat suddenly feels too thick to let anything through.

“I’m not saying it’s the same thing, ‘cause it’s not,” Jughead pauses to rake in a deep breath, “but I am saying I don’t hold anything against you. You’re in a really crappy position that I don’t envy at all, and I’m not going to make it worse by blaming you for something you didn’t have shit to do with.”

“He almost got me killed too,” Veronica whispers, the odor of gunpowder and blood still scorched in her nostrils, the nauseating thud of Small Fry’s body against the polished hardwood echoing in her ears.

She was almost collateral damage. ‘Almost’ being the key word, here. Betty actually was collateral damage. And maybe Veronica would’ve been with her if she herself hadn’t _almost_ been collateral damage. Maybe she would’ve been with Betty and she could’ve stopped what happened from happening, or maybe she could’ve stomped on her father’s phone before Jughead could even call it, and it’s these thoughts that have been gnawing away at her brain like rat infested gorgonzola.

Jughead’s eyes widen. “That night?”

Veronica nods and quietly chokes back the memory of vomit burning in her throat.

“Do you wanna talk about it?” he asks, low and grave.

The body is bound to be somewhere illicit, if there is any body left at all. Veronica blinks and salvages what she can of her collected demeanor, silently smothers her demons down. Pursing her lips, she shakes her head.

“I’d rather finish brushing your hair.”

“Alright, but no more yanking,” he mutters.

“Please, that was a baby tug,” Veronica teases lightly. “You would know if I yanked.”

She sprays another generous blast of dry conditioner, inhaling the french vanilla aroma as her nerves begin to settle.

“Gee, thanks for making my head smell like dessert I don’t feel well enough to eat.”

“You’re going to be thanking me for real when all the tangles come out.”

Despite the banter, Veronica puts in extra effort to be gentle. Especially around the bump. Brushing his hair calms her down, really. The familiar, repetitive motions. A task to help her feel nominally useful and less at a loss.

Soon the knots smooth under the path of the bristles, and the brush rakes through with an easy glide. She sets it aside and styles a bit with her fingers, preening and skimming. Messes around until his hair neatly sweeps the way it tends to when it’s released from that tawdry beanie she’s yearned to throw in a roaring fire since the moment she laid eyes on it.

“All done.” She moves away and passes him a compact as he eases back again.

“Wow,” Jughead mutters, checking out his reflection. “Can’t believe I’m saying this, but you did good. I mean, I still look like crap, but at least now I look like refined crap.”

“You have nice hair,” she compliments. “You should let us see it more often. Any chance that beanie burned during Riot Night?”

Jughead flashes her a smug look as he snaps the compact closed. “Nope. It’s survived to see another day, give or take a tear and some blood stains.”

Veronica crinkles her nose in displeasure. Before she can reply, her phone chirps with an incoming text. She takes a peek just in case it’s her mother. It’s actually Archie and distress tugs at her chest as she reads it over.

> _911 Betty freaking out!_

Veronica quickly tucks it back into the subtle pocket in her velour dress and rises to her feet with a placid veil draped over her features. No reason to alarm Jughead. One panicked patient is enough.

“I’ve got to go for a minute, okay?”

“Stop, don’t, come back,” he says, inflectionless in a dead-on imitation of Gene Wilder’s Willy Wonka. Veronica rolls her eyes despite the anxiety stirring in her stomach.

“I know you loved the drive-in but it’s closed, so here,” she plucks up the remote and switches the mounted television on, “find some movies that aren’t ancient.”

He mumbles some protest Veronica doesn’t quite catch as she makes her exit. As soon as the door shuts behind her, she takes off and sprints the short distance to Betty’s room. She bursts through, white hot worry pumping through her veins.

Archie’s got his hands help up in a placating gesture and Betty’s are nervously spasming in the air over her chest.

“What’s going on?”

“Jughead lost his spleen?” Betty splutters, brows hiked over wide, frightened eyes and jaw hanging open.

“I didn’t realize you didn’t know,” Archie says softly. “He’s okay though. Ronnie, you were just with him, right?”

“Yes.” Veronica flutters to Betty’s bedside, wrapping both arms around her quivering frame. “Take it easy, Betty. It’s not a big deal, people live without their spleens all the time.”

The dismayed look Archie gives her indicates that this was the wrong thing to say. Indication confirmed by the uncomfortable way Betty goes rigid in her embrace. Veronica mentally scolds herself and tries again.

“It sounds worse than it actually is. Betty, I was literally talking to him three minutes ago. He’s feeling well enough to be a smart ass, so he’s definitely not about to fall into a coma or anything.”

“I have to see him,” she declares. “I need to see him.”

“Uh…” Veronica dubiously looks to Archie for assistance.

“Err, Betty, you can’t exactly walk down the hall,” he supplies, frowning.

“I don’t care! I’ll get a wheelchair or something, I need to see Jughead!” Betty whips her head to Veronica, and it’s coastal waves breaking against jagged rocks in her determined gaze. “I don’t care if I’m overreacting! I keep thinking about his blood in my mouth and with news like this, I just— I just can’t wait anymore!”

“Okay,” Veronica agrees, if only because it’s painful to see Betty this distraught. She gives her a reassuring squeeze and stands. “I’ll go find someone, okay?”

“Hang on, I’ve got a better plan.” Archie steps around her and bows forward. “Betty, I’m just gonna carry you. It’ll be faster.”

Betty bobs her head in assent, arms eagerly stretching up. He slips one arm around her torso, the other under her knees, and Veronica warily sucks her lip between her teeth.

“You better be careful with her, Archibald, or so help me,” she warns severely.

She can’t forget the horrors that hide under Betty’s hospital gown and even her own boyfriend will not be exempt from her wrath if he does anything to worsen what is already so raw, so tender, so unspeakably hurt.

“I will,” he promises with a sad, knowing smile. “Get her IV, Ronnie.”

Veronica complies, curling her hand around the cool metal pole. She opens the door with her opposite and mindfully tugs it forward.

“Thanks, you guys,” Betty murmurs in relief.

Veronica moves with the driven gait she takes on whenever she needs to speak to a manager at Barney’s, eyes darting back to make sure Archie keeps pace and a good hold on Betty. It’s a short trip, less than half the hallway, but you can’t be too cautious with cargo this precious.

Veronica uses her hips to bump the door to Jughead’s room wide open, wide enough for Archie and Betty to come through beside her more so than behind her, only a step or so back.

“Surprise,” she greets.

And Jughead’s already scrambling, reaching for Betty as his liquid gaze wavers. Veronica lets go of the pole, shuffling out of the way. Archie charily lowers Betty into the bed and immediately, their arms are locked around each other. Veronica imagines it hurts, two cages of fractured ribs crashing together, the pressure against wounds stitched and covered. If it does, it must not matter. They clutch onto one another like the world will end if they let go. Betty stifles this desperate animal cry against the column of Jughead’s throat. Veronica can hear his breath catch in her hair, thick with emotion.

Archie gives her a prompting nudge, pointedly jerks his head in the direction of the door. Yeah, for sure. It’s time to go, give them their privacy. Veronica turns on her heel and briskly ducks out.

**Author's Note:**

> It's almost 5 AM, so this is probably Typo City. I'll fix it when I wake up, probably. Title is from the song on my playlist rn cause I'm too tired to look elsewhere. Peace out.


End file.
